Meal planning?

[Wannabeamama]

Would someone please help me figure out how to meal plan? How do I figure out what meals, what veggies, when, etc? And then how do I plan my day around it? What do you do?


Edited to add: I'm tired of throwing out food that I didn't eat, or working with fast food. It's just my hubby and myself, so making a 9x13 pan of something is too much. Do I just make 2 smaller pans, and freeze one? Do I have to cook the meat first then?

[Theresa]

Yes you could make two smaller pans of whatever. Or make one big one and freeze single portions. I would say almost always cook the meat first when making a dish.

I do up a weekly menu and grocery list for or dinners. I usually make or just have extra whatever that I take to work for lunches. As far as points I figure out what dinner will be and then plan lunch and breakfast around that.

I have never had trouble getting veggies in... I am a vegetarian now but even before we always had either salad every night or some other veggie. I like to have salad with lunch as it helps me stay full longer.

Is this what you were looking for??

[RobinM]

I make a list of meals for the week. I don't necessarily stick to a specific day for a meal unless I plan something in the crockpot so we have some flexibility. I do take leftovers for lunch, especially soups, casseroles, etc. Here is how I plan my meals each week:

1. I look through my cupboards, frig and freezer to see if there are any ingredients I can throw together for a meal, ie. leftover meat, veggies, spaghetti sauce, broth, etc. Nothing needed for the grocery list.

2. What I can't throw together or make a main meal from, I look in my cookbooks, cooking mags for recipes with an ingredient/s I want to use, ie. I have barley so I look for a recipe with barley. If I'm missing ingredients I add them to my grocery list.

3. If I don't have enough meals with steps 1 & 2, I pick out recipes I want to make and add those ingredients to the grocery list. Even though I have a family of 4, we always have leftovers so I may plan a day, usually Thurs, we eat just leftovers.

4. I make sure I plan for fresh fruit & veggies for lunches and snacks (I have 2 school age kids and the fruit is usually gone by mid week!) and buy essentials like milk, eggs, bread, etc.

We rarely waste these days. With money tight and meal planning all of the fresh stuff is eaten and the end of the week we are eating canned pineapple and chili .

I hope this helps.

[Wannabeamama]

Thank you both!

[Joanna]

I am a single person and what I do is I shop twice a week, and every tim I shop, I refill staples AND I buy the ingredients to cook ONE proper recipe. I do not halve the recipe, I cook all the servings then I just freeze the ones I don't eat. I eat the frozen ones ont he days I don't cook. Over time, you develop a bit of a selection in the freezer so you are not always eating the same things. If I had a big enough freezer, I would do what a woman on another board I visit does, she cooks once a week and makes 12 servings!